The Feast of Pope St. Damasus I. He is best known for commissioning the Vulgate, translated by St. Jerome. His time as pontiff was not without controversy . . .
Pope Saint Damasus I was pope from 366 to 384.Probably born near the city of Idanha-a-Nova (in Lusitania, Hispania), in what is present-day Portugal, or near the city of Guimarães (in what is present-day Portugal), in Gallaecia (now Galicia, Spain) under the Western Roman Empire, his life coincided with the rise of Constantine I and the reunion and redivision of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire as well as what is sometimes known as the Constantinian shift associated with the widespread legitimization of Christianity and the later adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Roman state.
Damasus I is known to have been raised in the service of the church of the martyr St. Laurence in Rome, and following the death of Pope Liberius, he succeeded to the Papacy amidst factional violence. A group of Damasus' supporters, previously loyal to the Antipope Felix II, attacked and killed rivals loyal to Liberius' deacon Ursinus, in a riot that required the intervention of Emperor Valentinian I to quell.
Damasus faced accusations of murder and adultery in his early years as pope. The neutrality of these claims have come into question with some suggesting that the accusations were motivated by the schismatic conflict with the supporters of Arianism. His personal problems were contrasted with his religious accomplishments, which included restoring the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, appointing the later-Saint Jerome as his personal secretary, creating (through Jerome) a standard Latin translation of the Bible, known as the Vulgate, that replaced existing Vetus Latina, and translated from the original Hebrew instead of the Greek Septuagint, and presiding over the Council of Rome in 382, at which, according to Roman Catholic tradition and the 6th century document Decretum Gelasianum, the modern Catholic canon of scripture was first set down.
Ora Pro Nobis, Sancte Damase . . .